Part 14

But Zora still stood silent in the shadow of the Silver Fleece, hearing and yet not hearing. She was searching for the Way, groping for the threads of life, seeking almost wildly to understand the foundations of understanding, piteously asking for answer to the puzzle of life. All the while the walls rose straight about her and narrow. To continue in school meant charity, yet she had nowhere to go and nothing to go with. To refuse to work for the Cresswells meant trouble for the school and perhaps arrest for herself. To work in the fields meant endless toil and a vista that opened upon death.

Like a hunted thing the girl turned and twisted in thought and faced everywhere the blank Impossible. Cold and dreamlike without, her shut teeth held back seething fires within, and a spirit of revolt that gathered wildness as it grew. Above all flew the dream, the phantasy, the memory of the past, the vision of the future. Over and over she whispered to herself: "This is not the End; this can not be the End."

Somehow, somewhere, would come salvation. Yet what it would be and what she expected she did not know. She sought the Way, but what way and whither she did not know, she dared not dream.

One thing alone lay in her wild fancy like a great and wonderful fact dragging the dream to earth and anchoring it there. That was the Silver Fleece. Like a brooding mother, Zora had watched it. She knew how the gin had been cleaned for its pressing and how it had been baled apart and carefully covered. She knew how proud Colonel Cresswell was of it and how daily he had visitors to see it and finger the wide white wound in its side.

"Yes, sir, grown on my place, by my niggers, sir!" he assured them; and they marvelled.

To Zora's mind, this beautiful baled fibre was hers; it typified happiness; it was an holy thing which profane hands had stolen. When it came back to her (as come it must, she cried with clenched hands) it would bring happiness; not the great Happiness--that was gone forever--but illumination, atonement, and something of the power and the glory. So, involuntarily almost, she haunted the cotton storehouse, flitting like a dark and silent ghost in among the workmen, greeting them with her low musical voice, warding them with the cold majesty of her eyes; each day afraid of some last parting, each night triumphant--it was still there!

The Colonel--Zora already forgotten--rode up to the Cresswell Oaks, pondering darkly. It was bad enough to contemplate Helen's marriage in distant prospect, but the sudden, almost peremptory desire for marrying at Eastertide, a little less than two months away, was absurd. There were "business reasons arising from the presidential campaign in the fall," John Taylor had telegraphed; but there was already too much business in the arrangement to suit the Colonel. With Harry it was different. Indeed it was his own quiet suggestion that made John Taylor hurry matters.

Harry trusted to the novelty of his father's new wealth to make the latter complacent; he himself felt an impatient longing for the haven of a home. He had been too long untethered. He distrusted himself. The devil within was too fond of taking the bit in his teeth. He would remember to his dying day one awful shriek in the night, as of a soul tormenting and tormented. He wanted the protection of a good woman, and sometimes against the clear whiteness of her letters so joyous and generous, even if a bit prim and didactic, he saw a vision of himself reflected as he was, and he feared.

It was distinctively disconcerting to Colonel Cresswell to find Harry quite in favor of early nuptials, and to learn that the sole objection even in Helen's mind was the improbability of getting a wedding-gown in time. Helen had all a child's naive love for beautiful and dainty things, and a wedding-gown from Paris had been her life dream. On this point, therefore, there ensued spirited arguments and much correspondence, and both her brother and her lover evinced characteristic interest in the planning.

Said Harry: "Sis, I'll cable to Paris today. They can easily hurry the thing along."

Helen was delighted; she handed over a telegram just received from John Taylor. "Send me, express, two bales best cotton you can get."

The Colonel read the message. "I don't see the connection between this and hurrying up a wedding-gown," he growled. None of them discerned the handwriting of Destiny.

"Neither do I," said Harry, who detected yielding in his father's tone. "But we'd better send him the two prize bales; it will be a fine advertisement of our plantation, and evidently he has a surprise in store for us."

The Colonel affected to hesitate, but next morning the Silver Fleece went to town.

Zora watched it go, and her heart swelled and died within her. She walked to town, to the station. She did not see Mrs. Vanderpool arriving from New Orleans; but Mrs. Vanderpool saw her, and looked curiously at the tall, tragic figure that leaned so dolorously beside the freight car. The bales were loaded into the express car; the train pulled away, its hoarse snorting waking vague echoes in the forest beyond. But to the girl who stood at the End, looking outward to darkness, those echoes roared like the crack of doom. A passing band of contract hands called to her mockingly, and one black giant, laughing loudly, gripped her hand.

"Come, honey," he shouted, "you'se a'dreaming! Come on, honey!"

She turned abruptly and gripped his hand, as one drowning grips anything offered--gripped till he winced. She laughed a loud mirthless laugh, that came pouring like a sob from her deep lungs.

"Come on!" she mocked, and joined them.

They were a motley crowd, ragged, swaggering, jolly. There were husky, big-limbed youths, and bold-faced, loud-tongued girls. To-morrow they would start up-country to some backwoods barony in the kingdom of cotton, and work till Christmas time. Today was the last in town; there was craftily advanced money in their pockets and riot in their hearts. In the gathering twilight they marched noisily through the streets; in their midst, wide-eyed and laughing almost hysterically, marched Zora.

Mrs. Vanderpool meantime rode thoughtfully out of town toward Cresswell Oaks. She was returning from witnessing the Mardi Gras festivities at New Orleans and at the urgent invitation of the Cresswells had stopped off. She might even stay to the wedding if the new plans matured.

Mrs. Vanderpool was quite upset. Her French maid, on whom she had depended absolutely for five years or more, had left her.

"I think I want to try a colored maid," she told the Cresswells, laughingly, as they drove home. "They have sweet voices and they can't doff their uniform. Helene without her cap and apron was often mistaken for a lady, and while I was in New Orleans a French confectioner married her under some such delusion. Now, haven't you a girl about here who would do?"

"No," declared Harry decisively, but his sister suggested that she might ask Miss Smith at the colored school.

Again Mrs. Vanderpool laughed, but after tea she wandered idly down the road. The sun behind the swamp was crimsoning the world. Mrs. Vanderpool strolled alone to the school, and saw Sarah Smith. There was no cordiality in the latter's greeting, but when she heard the caller's errand her attention was at once arrested and held. The interests of her charges were always uppermost in her mind.

"Can't I have the girl Zora?" Mrs. Vanderpool at last inquired.

Miss Smith started, for she was thinking of Zora at that very instant. The girl was later than usual, and she was momentarily expecting to see her tall form moving languidly up the walk.

She gave Mrs. Vanderpool a searching look. Mrs. Vanderpool glanced involuntarily at her gown and smiled as she did it.

"Could I trust you with a human soul?" asked Miss Smith abruptly.

Mrs. Vanderpool looked up quickly. The half mocking answer that rose involuntarily to her lips was checked. Within, Mrs. Vanderpool was a little puzzled at herself. Why had she asked for this girl? She had felt a strange interest in her--a peculiar human interest since she first saw her and as she saw her again this afternoon. But would she make a satisfactory maid? Was it not a rather dangerous experiment? Why had she asked for her? She certainly had not intended to when she entered the house.

In the silence Miss Smith continued: "Here is a child in whom the fountains of the great deep are suddenly broken up. With peace and care she would find herself, for she is strong. But here there is no peace. Slavery of soul and body awaits her and I am powerless to protect her. She must go away. That going away may make or ruin her. She knows nothing of working for wages and she has not the servant's humility; but she has loyalty and pluck. For one she loves there is nothing she would not do; but she cannot be driven. Or rather, if she is driven, it may rouse in her the devil incarnate. She needs not exactly affection--she would almost resent that--but intelligent interest and care. In return for this she will gradually learn to serve and serve loyally. Frankly, Mrs. Vanderpool, I would not have chosen you for this task of human education. Indeed, you would have been my last thought--you seem to me--I speak plainly--a worldly woman. Yet, perhaps--who can tell?--God has especially set you to this task. At any rate, I have little choice. I am at my wits' end. Elspeth, the mother of this child, is not long dead; and here is the girl, beautiful, unprotected; and here am I, almost helpless. She is in debt to the Cresswells, and they are pressing the claim to her service. Take her if you can get her--it is, I fear, her only chance. Mind you--if you can persuade her; and that may be impossible."

"Where is she now?"

Miss Smith glanced out at the darkening landscape, and then at her watch.

"I do not know; she's very late. She's given to wandering, but usually she is here before this time."

"I saw her in town this afternoon," said Mrs. Vanderpool.

"Zora? In town?" Miss Smith rose. "I'll send her to you tomorrow," she said quietly. Mrs. Vanderpool had hardly reached the Oaks before Miss Smith was driving toward town.

A small cabin on the town's ragged fringe was crowded to suffocation. Within arose noisy shouts, loud songs, and raucous laughter; the scraping of a fiddle and whine of an accordion. Liquor began to appear and happy faces grew red-eyed and sodden as the dances whirled. At the edge of the orgy stood Zora, wild-eyed and bewildered, mad with the pain that gripped her heart and hammered in her head, crying in tune with the frenzied music--"the End--the End!"

Abruptly she recognized a face despite the wreck and ruin of its beauty.

"Bertie!" she cried as she seized the mother of little Emma by the arm.

The woman staggered and offered her glass.

"Drink," she cried, "drink and forget."

In a moment Zora sprang forward and seized the burning liquid in both hands. A dozen hands clapped a devil's tattoo. A score of voices yelled and laughed. The shriek of the music was drowned beneath the thunder of stamping feet. Men reeled to singing women's arms, but above the roar rose the song of the voice of Zora--she glided to the middle of the room, standing tip-toed with skirts that curled and turned; she threw back her head, raised the liquor to her lips, paused and looked into the face of Miss Smith.

A silence fell like a lightning flash on the room as that white face peered in at the door. Slowly Zora's hands fell and her eyes blinked as though waking from some awful dream. She staggered toward the woman's outstretched arms....

Late that night the girl lay close in Miss Smith's motherly embrace.

"I was going to hell!" she whispered, trembling.

"Why, Zora?" asked Miss Smith calmly.

"I couldn't find the Way--and I wanted to forget."

"People in hell don't forget," was the matter-of-fact comment. "And, Zora, what way do you seek? The way where?"

Zora sat up in bed, and lifted a gray and stricken face.

"It's a lie," she cried, with hoarse earnedstness, "the way nowhere. There is no Way! You know--I want _him_--I want nothing on earth but him--and him I can't ever have."

The older woman drew her down tenderly.

"No, Zora," she said, "there's something you want more than him and something you can have!"

"What?" asked the wondering girl.

"His respect," said Sarah Smith, "and I know the Way."

_Twenty-one_

THE MARRIAGE MORNING

Mrs. Vanderpool watched Zora as she came up the path beneath the oaks. "She walks well," she observed. And laying aside her book, she waited with a marked curiosity.

The girl's greeting was brief, almost curt, but unintentionally so, as one could easily see, for back in her eyes lurked an impatient hunger; she was not thinking of greetings. She murmured a quick word, and stood straight and tall with her eyes squarely on the lady.

In the depths of Mrs. Vanderpool's heart something strange--not new, but very old--stirred. Before her stood this tall black girl, quietly returning her look. Mrs. Vanderpool had a most uncomfortable sense of being judged, of being weighed,--and there arose within her an impulse to self-justification.

She smiled and said sweetly, "Won't you sit?" But despite all this, her mind seemed leaping backward a thousand years; back to a simpler, primal day when she herself, white, frail, and fettered, stood before the dusky magnificence of some bejewelled barbarian queen and sought to justify herself. She shook off the phantasy,--and yet how well the girl stood. It was not every one that could stand still and well.

"Please sit down," she repeated with her softest charm, not dreaming that outside the school white persons did not ask this girl to sit in their presence. But even this did not move Zora. She sat down. There was in her, walking, standing, sitting, a simple directness which Mrs. Vanderpool sensed and met.

"Zora, I need some one to help me--to do my hair and serve my coffee, and dress and take care of me. The work will not be hard, and you can travel and see the world and live well. Would you like it?"

"But I do not know how to do all these things," returned Zora, slowly. She was thinking rapidly--Was this the Way? It sounded wonderful. The World, the great mysterious World, that stretched beyond the swamp and into which Bles and the Silver Fleece had gone--did it lead to the Way? But if she went there what would she see and do, and would it be possible to become such a woman as Miss Smith pictured?

"What is the world like?" asked Zora.

Mrs. Vanderpool smiled. "Oh, I meant great active cities and buildings, myriads of people and wonderful sights."

"Yes--but back of it all, what is it really? What does it look like?"

"Heavens, child! Don't ask. Really, it isn't worth while peering back of things. One is sure to be disappointed."

"Then what's the use of seeing the world?"

"Why, one must live; and why not be happy?" answered Mrs. Vanderpool, amused, baffled, spurred for the time being from her chronic _ennui_.

"Are you happy?" retorted Zora, looking her over carefully, from silken stockings to garden hat. Mrs. Vanderpool laid aside her little mockery and met the situation bravely.

"No," she replied simply. Her eyes grew old and tired.

Involuntarily Zora's hand crept out protectingly and lay a moment over the white jewelled fingers. Then quickly recovering herself, she started hastily to withdraw it, but the woman's fingers closed around the darker ones, and Mrs. Vanderpool's eyes became dim.

"I need you, Zora," she said; and then, seeing the half-formed question, "Yes, and you need me; we need each other. In the world lies opportunity, and I will help you."

Zora rose abruptly, and Mrs. Vanderpool feared, with a tightening of heart, that she had lost this strangely alluring girl.

"I will come to-morrow," said Zora.

As Mrs. Vanderpool went in to lunch, reaction and lingering doubts came trouping back. To replace the daintiest of trained experts with the most baffling semi-barbarian, well!

"Have you hired a maid?" asked Helen.

"I've engaged Zora," laughed Mrs. Vanderpool, lightly; "and now I'm wondering whether I have a jewel or--a white elephant."

"Probably neither," remarked Harry Cresswell, drily; but he avoided the lady's inquiring eyes.

Next morning Zora came easily into Mrs. Vanderpool's life. There was little she knew of her duties, but little, too, that she could not learn with a deftness and divination almost startling. Her quietness, her quickness, her young strength, were like a soothing balm to the tired woman of fashion, and within a week she had sunk back contentedly into Zora's strong arms.

"It's a jewel," she decided.

With this verdict, the house agreed. The servants waited on "Miss Zora" gladly; the men scarcely saw her, and the ladies ran to her for help in all sorts. Harry Cresswell looked upon this transformation with an amused smile, but the Colonel saw in it simply evidence of dangerous obstinacy in a black girl who hitherto had refused to work.

Zora had been in the house but a week when a large express package was received from John Taylor. Its unwrapping brought a cry of pleasure from the ladies. There lay a bolt of silken-like cambric of wondrous fineness and lustre, marked: "For the wedding-dress." The explanation accompanied the package, that Mary Taylor had a similar piece in the North.

Helen and Harry said nothing of the cablegram to the Paris tailor, and Helen took no steps toward having the cambric dress made, not even when the wedding invitations appeared.

"A Cresswell married in cotton!" Helen was almost in tears lest the Paris gown be delayed, and sure enough a cablegram came at last saying that there was little likelihood of the gown being ready by Easter. It would be shipped at the earliest convenience, but it could hardly catch the necessary boat. Helen had a good cry, and then came a wild rush to get John Taylor's cloth ready. Still, Helen was querulous. She decided that silk embroidery must embellish the skirt. The dressmaker was in despair.

"I haven't a single spare worker," she declared.

Helen was appealing to Mrs. Vanderpool.

"I can do it," said Zora, who was in the room.

"Do you know how?" asked the dressmaker.

"No, but I want to know."

Mrs. Vanderpool gave a satisfied nod. "Show her," she said. The dressmaker was on the edge of rebellion. "Zora sews beautifully," added Mrs. Vanderpool.

Thus the beautiful cloth came to Zora's room, and was spread in a glossy cloud over her bed. She trembled at its beauty and felt a vague inner yearning, as if some subtle magic of the woven web were trying to tell her its story.

She worked over it faithfully and lovingly in every spare hour and in long nights of dreaming. Wilfully she departed from the set pattern and sewed into the cloth something of the beauty in her heart. In new and intricate ways, with soft shadowings and coverings, she wove in that white veil her own strange soul, and Mrs. Vanderpool watched her curiously, but in silence.

Meantime all things were arranged for a double wedding at Cresswell Oaks. As John and Mary Taylor had no suitable home, they were to come down and the two brides to go forth from the Cresswell mansion. Accordingly the Taylors arrived a week before the wedding and the home took on a festive air. Even Colonel Cresswell expanded under the genial influences, and while his head still protested his heart was glad. He had to respect John Taylor's undoubted ability; and Mary Taylor was certainly lovely, in spite of that assumption of cleverness of which the Colonel could not approve.

Mary returned to the old scenes with mingled feelings. Especially was she startled at seeing Zora a member of the household and apparently high in favor. It brought back something of the old uneasiness and suspicion.

All this she soon forgot under the cadence of Harry Cresswell's pleasant voice and the caressing touch of his arm. He seemed handsomer than ever; and he was, for sleep and temperance and the wooing of a woman had put a tinge in his marble face, smoothed the puffs beneath his eyes, and given him a more distinguished bearing and a firmer hand. And Mary Taylor was very happy. So was her brother, only differently; he was making money; he was planning to make more, and he had something to pet which seemed to him extraordinarily precious and valuable.

Taylor eagerly inquired after the cloth, and followed the ladies to Zora's room, adjoining Mrs. Vanderpool's, to see it. It lay uncut and shimmering, covered with dim silken tracery of a delicacy and beauty which brought an exclamation to all lips.

"That's what we can do with Alabama cotton," cried John Taylor in triumph.

They turned to him incredulously.

"But--"

"No 'buts' about it; these are the two bales you sent me, woven with a silk woof." No one particularly noticed that Zora had hastily left the room. "I had it done in Easterly's New Jersey mills according to an old plan of mine. I'm going to make cloth like that right in this county some day," and he chuckled gayly.

But Zora was striding up and down the halls, the blood surging in her ears. After they were gone she came back and closed the doors. She dropped on her knees and buried her face in the filmy folds of the Silver Fleece.

"I knew it! I knew it!" she whispered in mingled tears and joy. "It called and I did not understand."

It was her talisman new-found; her love come back, her stolen dream come true. Now she could face the world; God had turned it straight again. She would go into the world and find--not Love, but the thing greater than Love. Outside the door came voices--the dressmaker's tones, Helen's soft drawl, and Mrs. Vanderpool's finished accents. Her face went suddenly gray. The Silver Fleece was not hers! It belonged--She rose hastily. The door opened and they came in. The cutting must begin at once, they all agreed.

"Is it ready, Zora?" inquired Helen.

"No," Zora quietly answered, "not quite, but tomorrow morning, early." As soon as she was alone again, she sat down and considered. By and by, while the family was at lunch, she folded the Silver Fleece carefully and locked it in her new trunk. She would hide it in the swamp. During the afternoon she sent to town for oil-cloth, and bade the black carpenter at Miss Smith's make a cedar box, tight and tarred. In the morning she prepared Mrs. Vanderpool's breakfast with unusual care. She was sorry for Mrs. Vanderpool, and sorry for Miss Smith. They would not, they could not, understand. What would happen to her? She did not know; she did not care. The Silver Fleece had returned to her. Soon it would be buried in the swamp whence it came. She had no alternative; she must keep it and wait.

She heard the dressmaker's voice, and then her step upon the stair. She heard the sound of Harry Cresswell's buggy, and a scurrying at the front door. On came the dressmaker's footsteps--then her door was unceremoniously burst open.